How a Web3 Community Invested $26M+ In Deals & Created a Media Platform With 30k+ Subscribers
Daopedia is building Wikipedia for DAOs. This article has been written in collaboration with Eliot Couvat, Head of Community at Coinvise. If you find this essay interesting, make sure to follow Daopedia and Eliot on Twitter. Enjoy!
In a few years, the Investment & Media DAO Global Coin Research has invested $26M+ in deals and has created a Media platform with 30k+ subscribers. What started as a platform to help writers make a living is, today, one of the most thriving Web3 communities.
Here’s their story 🔥
1 — The early story of Global Coin Research
From her background of being a journalist at Techcrunch and seeing how the traditional reporting space runs, Joyce Yang, founder at Global Coin Research (GCR), realized early on how writers did not get enough credit and never received the value they deserved.
In 2016, after reading through several essays about Crypto, she became more and more interested in this space. She quickly realized Web3 could be a potential solution for writers to make a living and for readers to access quality content.
Motivated, she launched Global Coin Research, which started as a platform for crypto folks to write, share their knowledge & earn a living. The community soon after decided to share their knowledge and invest together in up-and-coming crypto projects.
In 2020, with the rise of DAOs and the many advantages this new structural model allows, Global Coin Research transitioned to a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) to better leverage the power of the community. GCR became a tokenized, decentralized community of learners and investors in Web3.
2 — Transitioning into a DAO
From there, the community focused on three main objectives:
• Goal #1: Increase reach and distribution of content to showcase writers’ work to potential investors.
• Goal #2: Host weekly workshops and AMAs featuring founders, showcase projects about to launch in the crypto space, and help teams get more information and contacts in the space.
•Goal #3: Make crypto investments as syndicates inside the groups and allow community members to make a living by getting a return on investments.
The GCR community needed a Token, a virtual currency, to run their virtual economy to accomplish these goals. They launched the $GCR Token in 2020, a token that would allow paying contributors (for sourcing deals, writing, organizing events, etc.), ensuring a sustainable and healthy community.
They designed the token so that it has several utilities:
• Utility #1: Access token-gated content — With enough tokens, readers could access quality content they couldn’t have otherwise. They put in place three tiers: Pioneer — Alpha — Gold, each tier allowing different access to the GCR content.
• Utility #2: Reward contributors — With a Token, writers and investors can get paid for making the community valuable. GCR created a Liquidity Pool, making those tokens immediately liquid & letting folks withdraw, sell tokens and make a living from day 1.
• Utility #3: Incentivize collaboration & Voting Power — Unlike traditional venture firms, decision-making is effectively democratic within the community, with $GCR holders voting on relevant opportunities. Deals are also often sourced by community members directly.
Thanks to the structural model of a DAO, and because of the $GCR token, the community started several initiatives to make the GCR project grow further: The GCR Star of the Week, IRL events, Weekly Newsletter, and more…
3 — Global Coin Research today
Through its closed ecosystem (token-gated community), GCR has created a positive feedback loop. Members need $GCR to access deals & content > They contribute to earning $GCR > It results in more content & deals > Leading to more people wanting to join the community etc.
Today, Global Coin Research is a media platform hosting high-quality crypto content and a thriving community of investors and learners, sharing their knowledge and investing together. GCR allowed hundreds of writers to get rewarded and deals to be made.
Because the project attracts thinkers, investors & writers in one place, GCR is THE community for anyone wanting to dive deeper and have hands-on experience in Web3.
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